Not Just Stew · The atlas · A working atlas of the world's cooking

Mesoamerica · Volume 07, Belize, Honduras and the Mosquito Shore

Coconut bread

Belize (Kriol)

Coconut bread, a yeasted loaf enriched with coconut milk: a torn half loaf of pale golden yeasted bread with a close, slightly moist crumb, the torn edge showing an even texture.

Illustration

Time
35 minutes

As tradition built it

Coconut bread

Makes 2 large loaves or 6 small rolls. Baked 30 to 35 minutes at 200°C.

Ingredients

The sponge

  • 120ml warm water
  • 2 tsp instant yeast
  • 2 tsp sugar

The dough

  • 360ml coconut milk
  • 120ml vegetable oil
  • 2 tbsp sugar
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1.2 to 1.9 litres white flour

Method

  1. Mix the warm water, yeast and 2 teaspoons of sugar and leave it 10 minutes, until it froths.
  2. Mix the coconut milk, oil, 2 tablespoons of sugar and the salt, and stir in the yeast.
  3. Work in the flour until it makes a dough, adding only as much as it needs.
  4. Knead it 5 to 8 minutes, until smooth and elastic.
  5. Cover it and leave it to rise until doubled.
  6. Knock it back and knead it 2 to 3 minutes more. Shape it into two large loaves or six small rolls and let them rise again.
  7. Bake at 200°C for 30 to 35 minutes.

Notes

Richard Wilk records being served plain, imported white bread, itself a Mexican product rather than a Belizean one, as an honoured guest during his 1973 fieldwork, a small but telling illustration of how thoroughly colonial-era taste hierarchy in Belize ranked imported goods above real local baking.

The recipe is credited to Erleen Godfrey, a Belizean cook, on the diaspora blog Rice and Beans: A Belizean Food Blog, 2007, whose author eats it with Blue Band margarine. Belize News Post's version uses coconut oil and two cups of coconut milk, rests the dough 20 minutes before kneading, and bakes it 25 to 30 minutes at the same heat.

What a modern chef changes

Controlled proof, concentrated milk

Method

  1. Proof the dough at a controlled, gentle temperature, using the residual warmth of a Big Green Egg run low with the lid down rather than a draughty kitchen counter, for a more even rise than an inconsistent domestic proving spot gives.
  2. Reduce a portion of the coconut milk separately before it goes into the dough, concentrating its flavour so the finished loaf carries real coconut character rather than the milder result a straight, unreduced tin can leave in a yeasted dough that also has to develop its own gluten structure.
  3. Bake on a pizza stone inside the Egg for a firmer, more evenly baked base crust than a domestic oven's tray tends to give.
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